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Saturn moon Iapetus' huge landslides stir intrigue
Source: BBC
29 July 2012 Last updated at 21:01 GMT
Saturn moon Iapetus' huge landslides stir intrigue
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Saturn's moon Iapetus frequently plays host to a huge type of landslide or avalanche that is rare elsewhere in the Solar System, scientists report.
Sturzstroms or "long-runout landslides" move faster and farther than geological models predict they should.
They have been seen on Earth and Mars, but there is debate about their causes.
Now, images from the Cassini space mission, reported in Nature Geoscience, suggest that heating of icy surfaces helps the landslides keep going.
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Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19011011
